


Whisper Secrets in Your Skin

by portraitofemmy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Secrets, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7304377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Tell me a secret,” Bucky whispers, but his voice is sounds loud in the still of the night, trapped by the blankets they have pulled over their heads.</i>
</p>
<p>Written for the prompt "tell me a secret" on a tumblr drabble meme. Four secrets in the life of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whisper Secrets in Your Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainbow_marbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbow_marbles/gifts).



> This was prompted by [girl3wonder](http://girl3wonder.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and is dedicated to her, because she was having a bad day and deserves all manner of good things. Including superheros who kiss each other softly and share secrets in the dark.

“Tell me a secret,” Bucky whispers, but his voice sounds loud in the still of the night, trapped by the blankets they have pulled over their heads. Steve’s eyes have adjusted to the dark of their little fort, couch cushions on the floor and his Ma’s lightest quilt pulled over them, and Bucky’s eyes are bright grey in the darkness. It’s winter but it doesn’t matter, his best friend is warm where Steve’s always cold, and he’s never warmer than when he knocking his knees against Bucky’s, tucked in like this. 

“What kinda secret?” Steve asks, scrunching up his face, because he can’t think of any secrets he keeps from Bucky. Bucky’s the person he shares secrets with, their play spots and hiding places, how to sneak down Bucky’s drain pipe or up Steve’s fire escape. 

“I dunno, something you’ve never told anyone. Something just for me,” Bucky needles, and Steve thinks, bites his lip.

“I heard my Ma talking to the priest last time I got real sick,” Steve admits. “I know I’m not supposed to be scared ‘a dyin’ because I’d go to God. But I am.”

Bucky’s hand is warm when he reaches for Steve’s, and Steve curls his fingers around it instinctively. “God can’t have you yet,” Bucky says firmly, like he’d fight God and win. Steve thinks he probably would.

___

“Tell me a secret,” Bucky says, and his voice is warm with drink from the bottle of whiskey sitting between them on the rooftop, nicked from Bucky’s dad’s liquor cabinet because they’re fighting again and Bucky was feeling petty.

Steve’s feeling as warm as Bucky’s voice, sweating and a little drunk in the lazy summer air, and he can’t stop looking at the undone buttons of Bucky’s shirt. It’s gaping open, and Steve can see where sweat’s pooling in the divot between his collarbones, the shape of his chest, the strength in his arms where his sleeves are roll up. 16 years old and Bucky’s already starting to get the body of a man, strong from the kinds of work he can get, clean and attractive because he’s a bit of a peacock, even if he’d deny it. Steve’s seen him shaving his face cross-ways before dates, like being all smooth is gonna make someone want to kiss him more. Steve wants to kiss him all the time.

“What kinda secret?” he says automatically, and his stomach swoops when Bucky tips his head towards him, smile playing on his lips. Steve reaches for the bottle, taking a swig against the nerves.

“Somethin’ special, something just for me,” Bucky prompts, and Steve can’t stop staring at his mouth. The corners of his lips curl into that smile, sweet and knowing, and Steve wants to kiss him all the time.

“Sometimes I want-” He starts, and then cuts himself off, scared. He wants too much. But Bucky just gives him that curling smile and inches closer. “Sometimes I want to kiss you so badly I can’t breathe.”

He’d be terrified, if Bucky weren’t still smiling at him, that easy, happy smile, and it’s partly the whiskey, but Steve thinks it’s partly that Bucky’s just happy to be with him. “So kiss me,” Bucky prompts. 

Steve does.

___

“Tell me a secret?” Bucky ask, and his voice is flat, that emotionless tone he’s had since the factory and the long march back to the camp. Peggy’s come and gone, and Steve followed Bucky back up to his room, worried as hell. The smell of smoke clinging to Bucky’s dress uniform, and he looks half like a man trying to drink himself to death, and half like one who’s already managed.

“What kind of secret?” Steve responds, automatic, sitting next to Bucky on the bed. Bucky’s eyes have fluttered closed, and his lashes are long, dark blurs on the skin of his cheeks. 

“Something no one else would know about Captain America,” and the way his says the title sounds like bitter acid on his tongue. “Something just for me.”

Steve sighs, and reaches for his best friend, tugging on Bucky’s jacket until he sits up, lets Steve pull it off and make a start of getting him out of his uniform. Usually the prospect of getting Bucky out of his clothes would make Steve’s heart race, but now all he can see is the bloodied scars and the unhealthy leanness which speaks of starvation. Steve’s worried as hell about him.

He gets Bucky stripped down to his skivvies and tipped sideways on the bed, and the way Bucky still reaches for him automatically is like a balm to the abraded nerves Steve’s being ignoring since Azzano. 

“I don’t think I can do this without you,” Steve whispers into the curve of Bucky’s neck, and he hates himself a little for it, because he should let Bucky go home. He knows they’ve offered Bucky a discharge, and after everything he’s gone through he deserves some fucking peace. But it’s the truth, Steve can’t imagine fighting this fight without Bucky by his side.

“With you ‘til the end of the line,” Bucky slurs, half asleep already, and Steve winds his arm around his partner’s waist. He’ll need to leave soon, go back to his own quarters in case someone comes look for him, but for now he can just hold Bucky close and breathe.

–––

“Tell me a secret?” Bucky asks, and his voice is rough with disuse. He doesn’t talk a lot these days. Still, the words make Steve’s heart skip, the way the recall memory, recall a dozen stolen moments, countless secrets across the span of their lives. 

“What kind of secret,” he asks, and he can feel Bucky shrug where they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder on a comfortable couch, staring out at the dense vegetation and creeping fog of the Wakandan jungle. 

“Something just for me,” Bucky says, dutifully, his part of the call and response, and Steve swallows around the lump in his throat, the ache in his heart. Then, more quietly, Bucky murmurs “Something I haven’t already forgotten.”

Turning a little Steve curls his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, careful of the sensitive area around the damaged prosthetic. He kisses Bucky’s temple, and Bucky easily relaxes his weight into Steve. It’s been 48 hours since he’s come out of cryo, three months since he went in, and so far the test results seem positive. But Steve can see a bone-deep wariness in Bucky, and exhaustion that doesn’t seem to be shaken by sleep or rest. 

“I don’t know who I am without you,” he admits, and he would feel guilty about putting that weight on Bucky if it weren’t so glaringly, painfully obvious everyone who’s ever seen him with Bucky in his life, and without him. “I hate having to try and figure it out.”

“You don’t want me to go back under,” Bucky says, and Steve sighs.

“It’s your choice,” he say, and means it, because it is. Bucky’s spent so long without the right to chose, Steve won’t take it away from him, even if it’ll gut him to have to watch Bucky go still and cold as the dead again. 

Quiet descends on them again, and Steve resolves to just take these moments for what they are, burn the feeling of closeness and the smell of Bucky’s hair into his brain, so he can call them up again if he needs too. Night is creeping into the jungle and it’s surprisingly peaceful, and for the most part T’Challa’s people leave them alone. They could sit here all night if the wanted, and Steve’s not particularly inclined to move.

“It’s not because of you,” Bucky says into the quiet, and his right hand moves to rest on Steve’s thigh. “Me going back into the ice. If I do. It’s not because of you. I love you.”

_Then don’t leave me,_ says the scared 9 year old in Steve’s brain, who knows enough about the world to be scared of death, but believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bucky Barnes can tie him to Earth by sheer force of will. “I know,” he says instead. “I love you too.”

Bucky’s hand squeezes his thigh, and Steve draws in a steady breath, and goes back to memorizing this moment. Just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [portraitofemy](http://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and am probably still doing the drabble meme, though I can't promise you'll get something this long. It was sort of an accident, and I just ran with it.


End file.
